Change/Update Log Entries

2001.10.16
Wow, has it been that long? I should really get some more of our material written up... Anyway, updated WebRing links as WebRing.com leaves yahoo and yet again doesn't automatically transfer their data.
1999.06.30
Cleaned up Panagwa's Blessing and the Wings of the Shining Soul, also made a few corrections to the Beastmaster discipline, and updated the characters.
1999.05.20
Finally got around to finishing up the new stuff and updating the site. Changed some unarmed combat knacks to not need as high of a success level if they are performed from a grapple. Pseudo-new Knacks: Matrix Strike, Fearsome Charge, Call Mount, Tame Mount, Echo Location. New Knacks: Steel Hand, Balanced Dodge, Heavy Hand, Transient Alteration, Strength of Stone, Circle of Confusion.
1999.04.13
Played Earthdawn some this weekend! Made some updates to Warrior and Beastmaster Disciplines, added Cavalryman. Put some explanatory text in the discipline index page. Minor change to Daumoqag (Blood Flame points can be used by Death's Door if the wielder is out of Karma). New Knacks being written up.
1999.04.07
Altered layout to make top page smaller and more accessible. Pushed category content lists down into sub pages. Left the old long-page style available as index-long.html. Reordered index-long.html to better suit the expected value of categories. Went ahead and dropped the link page--hopefully the web ring will be more useful. Changed the Knacks list to sort the Knacks into groups by Talent, which is a long overdue change. Added unarmed Combat Knack "Reversal".
1999.03.24
Joined the Earthdawn Web Ring. I put the Ring stuff near the top of the page, so people wouldn't have to scroll all the way to the bottom to get to it if they were just skimming the ring or something. It also essentially replaces the "Other Links" section, which may get removed soon.
1999.01.16
Lots of changes, since it has been so long since I uploaded pages, and even longer since I updated this file. Here are the main changes: Warrior discipline is still in flux; some characters are kinda up to date; added new thread items (Twilight Hammer, Oubliette, Cloud Circlet, Panagwa's Blessing, and Wings of the True Soul); added knacks (Analyze Style, Scene Memory).
1998.06.25
Dumped page statistics, since they are such a pain to get at from most web hosts. (Why won't they just let us get at the logs. Sheesh.) And no a "web counter" is not an acceptable alternative.
1998.02.04
Finally updated the "new" armor and shield rules. Mostly finished now.
1998.01.31
Finally typed up some of the new thread items.
1997.04.15
Added Multidiscipline Karma Ritual and Thread Weaving rules. Had these in mind a long time ago, just never remembered to write them up.
1997.04.11
Finally got the internal SGML code upgraded a bit. Works nicer and more reasonably now, and is finally returned to a self-consistent state so I can update the installed pages (ie, I work on a different machine from the web server and upload periodically).
Slight formatting changes to top page. Removed 'under construction' icons since our campaign is on hold and I probably won't make any more additions with no game to use them in.
Changes to Fire Skin and Paralyzing Venom
Been so long, there might be some other changes, but they probably don't matter anyway, and this notes page only gets read by like 2 people a month, so it's pretty obvious I'm about the only one who cares
1997.04.09
The main index has recieved one thousand hits! I'm still suprised we get several hits per day. (What? You didn't know I was counting? ;)
1996.11.02
May pull all nonoriginal text from the pages to avoid trouble from FASA. Don't want to though, as it breaks the aesthetics/completeness a bit for me. For the time being, just be sure you have the appropriate FASA products (Main rule book and Companion should cover anything we might put up).
Finished entering Beastmaster Discipline.
Entered most of everyone else's characters. Still need some work on the Character DTD and scripts. Need a way to find bonuses for talent steps and defense ratings, etc. Added versatility marker for talent lists (the little 'V' where the talent Circle will eventually go).
1996.10.31
Repaired Character script after deletion accident. Altered code model for transform script. Code looks a little better now, and easier to follow/edit. Only Character script actually uses it (other scripts are far simpler and don't really need it).
Entered Racial attribute adjustments and karma data.
Top page now extracts genitive race names for describing characters in list. Still doesn't notice multidiscipline though. That requires major rewrite (and complexity jump) of the general extract/pattern print script. Still thinking about how to best work it.
Commented out Legend point history from character sheets, only totals shown.
Equipment section added to character dtd and transform. Added some of Li'e'shidann's gear to her file.
Found bug in scripts. Shared transform code needs to interact better with data handlers in scripts. Can be ignored if tags aren't used in 'text' or 'num' entries for scripts that don't print data as it comes.
Added Beastmaster to Disciplines section, at least through Circle 8.
1996.10.30
Finally remembered to update design notes page and add log.
Almost all non-massive aspects of Character scripts complete. Added nice conditional links to character journals. Fixed scripts to read and use racial attribute adjustments and karma info. Special abilities still lacking.
New DTDs: Race, Skill(partial), Journal(simple)
Races only entered as placeholders. Need correct information.
New transforms: Journal(linked from character pages)
Minor adjustments to Wound rules and decisions made for Healing/Booster Potions. Li'e'shidann took rank 4 Wound in playing today, and it is being appropriately difficult to heal. I think these rules are quality, though the wound penalty still seems severe for heroic settings. Hmm.

Design Status and Notes

Most of the information in our pages is saved in SGML source. Perl scripts generate the html pages from the SGML source. The index is generated from an M4 file, which extracts information from the sgml files and builds lists for the page. I have a much more advanced SGML transform core script which I developed at work, that I hope to switch these over to use in the not too distant future.

Credits

Materials from FASA
All Earthdawn terms, logos, etc.
Most of the text of the discipline descriptions
Paintings from Michael Whelan
Meditating monk image cropped from "Shonto's Garden"
Flying thing image cropped from "Destiny's Road" (crop unfinished)
Undead with mask image cropped from "Angel of Death" (crop unfinished)
Book Cover
Cloaked Figure with arms upraised cropped from cover of a book by Louis Cooper. (I'll remember to look up the actual source sometime)
(Some web graphics gallery)
"firering.gif" background image (brightness levels modified)